


Riptide

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Lifeguard!Andrew, M/M, Neil is Alex, Ocean, Or was Alex, angst but not really, mood piece, old flame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 01:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: He was drowning, drowning on land, drowning in the rain and in Neil and in the traitorous pull of longing he thought he had long ago escaped.Andrew is a lifeguard; Neil is a soul he thought he had lost to the tides of time.





	Riptide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beka2305 (CurvedYellowFruit)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurvedYellowFruit/gifts).



> I dunno what this is, lol. It was supposed to be a nice little fluff piece for the amazing @elidethewise, but because I can never be straightforward it turned into this.

Andrew kept his feet firmly planted on the sand, refusing to give in to the throaty siren’s call of the ocean but unable to keep his eyes from it all the same.  He could feel the sun beating down on his scalp, his shoulders, testing the limits of his sunscreen. The water sang to him, flirted with him, as if it knew how his skin was begging him for its blessed relief.  

Children shot past him, screaming with laughter, bullets of color and sound and joy.  He narrowed his eyes as he watched them approach the water’s edge, but they merely dropped into the wet sand and started to heap it into mounds.  A particularly ambitious wave approached, and they squealed as it swarmed around their toes before receding, taking with it part of the foundation of their burgeoning sandcastle.  

Off to the side a man was watching them from behind his sunglasses, a whisper of a smile playing about his mouth.  He was a small man, slender and barely taller than Andrew himself; but there was something that niggled at Andrew’s brain.  Maybe it was that he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt in the middle of a heat wave. Maybe it was the way the man seemed on edge, despite his casual posture.  Andrew found himself strolling closer, spinning his whistle on its lanyard so it wrapped around his fingers, then unwrapped, over and over. Not much of a threat, but a warning nonetheless.

The man stiffened almost imperceptibly, then relaxed, the smile solidifying into something real.  He took off his sunglasses and Andrew froze, the whistle whipping around his fingers and slapping into his palm as it reached the end of its tether.

“Andrew.”  

He would never forget that voice.  It sounded like the ocean.

“Alex.”

Alex glanced down, rubbing a hand into his hair, a hand with new scars across the knuckles.  When he looked back up Andrew realized there was something different about his face, his eyes the clear pale blue of the sky, not the stormy gray they had been.  His hair, too, had a ruddier tone than the sandy brown Andrew had run his fingers through, all those years ago.

“Uh, it’s Neil, actually.”

Andrew kept his face as impassive as he could; he didn’t know a Neil, but he knew Alex.  Knew the way that carved mouth felt on his, the taste of salt on his skin, the little hitches of breath that were all he ever gave to betray himself as he fell apart.  He knew the roadmap of scars on his body, he knew the look on his face and the tremor in his voice as he said good-bye. As he promised to return, with fire in his eyes.

He knew what it was to wait, and to wait, and to wait.

So he waited now, as the blush that he knew crept up Alex’s—Neil’s—neck to overtake his cheeks.  “I came back.”

There was defiance in his voice, a wave crashing on the shore after the storm blew itself out.  And behind it, hope. It grabbed hold of Andrew, pulling at him like a rip current, dragging him away from the safety he had built for himself on this shore.

But Andrew knew what to do when caught in a rip.

“I don’t know anybody named Neil.”  He brushed past him, heading up the beach, parallel to the ebbing waves.  After all, his shift was over; this was not his responsibility anymore.

*****

His apartment was tiny, but close enough to the ocean that he could hear the waves.  Andrew opened the windows as wide as they would go. The tang of the sea wicked through the screens, diffusing through the small space like incense, heady and calming.  

There were leftovers in his refrigerator, and by some miracle there was no visible mold on the surface.  A couple of minutes in the microwave and he deemed it edible enough. It wasn’t like he would taste it anyway, not with the ground shivering beneath his feet, an earthquake that he doubted the rest of the city could feel.

He ate mechanically, then pulled out his book as if he could read over the roaring of waves in his ears.  Or was that blood? He had almost forgotten this feeling, as much as he could ever forget anything. His eyes roamed over words on the page, until the words danced and swirled and turned into freckles on fair skin tanned golden from hours under the sun.  Suddenly his breath came short, and the walls were closing in, pinning him down until he exploded out.

The book landed on the floor and he shoved his feet in his Olukai flip-flops.  The air was heavy with impending rain, but it slipped more easily into his lungs as soon as he stepped onto the sand.  He didn’t waste any time, heading straight for the water’s edge, avoiding the deceptively calm stretch in favor of the water breaking white as it hit the sand, then his feet, then his legs.  

There were clouds rolling in, the setting sun staining them rose and gold to match the water.  Andrew watched as the sun slid beneath the horizon, the water creeping up his calves, and he wished it would pull him with it.  Not for the first time, he wondered what it would like if he could surrender himself to the sea without consequence, if he could swim like a mermaid, like a selkie, diving deep to find Atlantis’ riches.

But he was grounded firmly on the earth, and Atlantis was a fairytale.  

He left the temptation of the water and walked, every inch of this beach as familiar to him as his own skin.  There were still people dotted here and there, sunset picnics being packed up, sleepy children being carried by impatient parents, everyone fleeing before the impending storm.  When the first drops of rain hit him, he turned back, raising his face up to the sky and letting it wash him clean.

Halfway back movement caught his eye, off by the steps leading to the parking lot.  A figure standing, silhouetted in the lights that fought against the heavy blackness of the night and the storm.  He stopped, caught in the net of memories and loneliness and his own damn wanting. It was impossible, that this could be Alex, somehow waiting for him after all these years of his own useless waiting.

The figure approached, lost for a moment in the inky darkness, in the roar of the waves as the rain returned to its home.  Yet somehow Andrew knew where he was, his internal compass pointing towards this one true north.

“I’m sorry,” Alex called.  No; not Alex; he would never have said those words.  Neil stepped out of the gloom, faint light glistening off the rain on his skin.  “I wanted to come back sooner.” He stopped an arm’s length away, not crowding. “Every day, I wanted to come back.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Neil glanced down again, as he had that afternoon, the picture of contrition if it weren’t for the twitch of that damnable mouth.  “I know.” He sidled closer.

“I don’t need you.”

“I know.”  Another half-step.

“I don’t want you here.”  It wasn’t a lie; not really.  Without him, Andrew had found solid ground, had built a foundation for a home, even if he still yearned for the beautiful unpredictability of the sea.

But somehow, there he was: Alex.   _ Neil _ .  One of the mystical creatures made real, Andrew’s own siren, destined to lure him to his doom.  

“You don’t owe me anything, Andrew,” Neil said, and once again Andrew was losing his footing, buffeted by something he didn’t understand.  “But I...”

A low rumble of thunder rolled over the water, and they both glanced towards the glowing signature of lightning that had struck far off shore.  The sudden theatricality of the moment struck Andrew, and he fought the urge to laugh. When he looked back at Neil, with his hair plastered down over his forehead and that crooked smile tugging at his mouth, he saw the same appreciation for the absurdity of it all.

It took his breath away.  He was drowning, drowning on land, drowning in the rain and in Neil and in the traitorous pull of longing he thought he had long ago escaped.

Neil held out his hand: an offer.  Andrew stared at it, remembering the feel of those long fingers, the little callouses, the fine bones under rough skin.  “Yes or no, Andrew?” The question was barely audible over the crashing of the surf and the staccato pulse of the rain. He was drowning, and he didn’t know if this was a lifeline or a snare.

He wasn’t sure he cared.

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno, part of me wants to keep this going but I have too many other projects right now. Anyway, comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
